


Mandatory Containment

by LiliGrey



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Crack, Happy Ending, M/M, Mates, Wooing, implied soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-06-21 02:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15547749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiliGrey/pseuds/LiliGrey
Summary: Tony never thought that he’d one day be wooed.By the Winter Soldier.Inside the Hulk containment room.But hey, first time for everything, right?





	1. Chapter 1

  


  


Tony absolutely did not scream in terror when he stumbled out of his elevator in a daze after a particularly long and productive inventing binge, and almost literally walked into the Winter Soldier.  


 

Who was standing in the middle of his apartment, face half in shadows and with only the moonlight glinting off his metallic arm. There was an absolutely cold-blooded murderous expression on his face, staring right through his soul as if he was already a dead man.

 

Okay, so maybe his sleep-deprived brain went a bit overboard with waxing poetry about his soon to be murderer.

 

“Uh…” His usual intelligence is giving him a complete blank, so he said the first thing that came to mind, which is what he always does anyway. “What the actual fuck?”

 

The Winter Soldier just kept on staring at him, clearly unimpressed, although he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to do anything, like kill him. Which isn’t as much a comfort as it should be, because he knew the deadliest assassin on Earth could easily finish him off in like half a millisecond, considering they are standing just a couple feet apart.

 

He wracked his brain, which is currently screaming _holy shit I’m going to die_ at him, not helpful. It normally doesn’t take this long for him to respond to a dangerous situation, or he’d be dead a million times already in the Avengers business, but somehow none of his battle reflexes and emergency responses are coming up, mainly because his would be murderer is just staring at him and not moving. Which reminds him. This was what he designed emergency protocols for.

 

“Jarv?”

 

“Avengers enrou...” Before he could even comprehend what was happening, Jarvis’ announcement was abruptly cut off by a muffled gunshot that went straight through the speaker that his voice had come out of, leaving sparks in the ceiling shooting out of the broken electronics.

 

“Holy shit!” It still took him way too long to activate the wrist gauntlet and point it at the assassin’s chest. “Hey! Don’t shoot at my baby!”

 

And somehow, miraculously, that made the Winter Soldier pause, lowering his weapon and tucking it out of sight. Even though Tony didn’t lower his.

 

Huh. Maybe not the day to die then.

 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tony finally asked the question that he probably should have asked from the beginning, though the wording could have been better.

 

The other man didn’t appear to be offended. And after a moment more of the Winter Soldier’s unwavering stare, he finally spoke up for the first time since their encounter.

 

“Mate.” The Winter Soldier said, his expression finally seemed to lose a bit of its previous murderous edge.

 

“Huh?” was Tony’s rather intelligent reply, until the word actually caught up with him. Something was niggling on the edge of his consciousness, something that someone might have mentioned in passing that was supposed to be important. Then it hit him. “Oh. _Mate_. As in, your mate? The one that Hydra abducted?”

 

His thoughts were finally spinning at a somewhat reasonable rate, and he vaguely recalled something Nat said when she dumped the whole load of top secret Hydra data on the communal kitchen table, and then it had been absolute mayhem after that, so Tony had more or less forgotten about her comment about the Winter Soldier, about how he had somehow defected from Hydra and given her all the data to take them down once and for all. All because of his mate.

 

They all had a few theories on that, which mainly boiled down to his mate likely being a civilian that Hydra abducted to coerce the Winter Soldier to do their bidding, keeping him in check. The fact that he is suddenly defecting now after so many years of service and handing Natasha enough data to bring the whole organization down, meant that he had probably been planning this from a rather long time ago, all without Hydra realizing.

 

And now that the Winter Soldier literally showed up in the middle of the night like the creepy assassin that he is, two months after Hydra’s complete downfall, and actually lowering his weapon when Tony said so, it all pointed to one possible explanation. The Winter Soldier needs something, probably their help, most likely to find his mate, that Hydra possibly abducted, and is almost certainly doing unspeakable things to. Thinking of that, he actually felt a bit sympathetic for the poor sod.

 

Although the Winter Soldier’s next words threw that train of thought out of the window.

 

“Not abducted. Found mate.” The assassin slowly shook his head, eyes still intent on boring holes into Tony’s soul.

 

“Huh? So does your mate need sanctuary then? Medical attention?”

 

At the mention of medical attention, the Winter Soldier took an urgent step closer and would have crashed into Tony if he hadn’t held up his gauntleted hand in warning. “Woah there.”

 

The Winter Soldier had his arms outstretched, as if to grab onto Tony, which were frozen in midair as he heeded Tony’s warning. He just stood there, eyes sweeping almost frantically over Tony’s whole body, as if checking or looking for something, at the same time drawing in several deep breaths, chasing down some elusive scent.

 

“You might need to use your words a bit more, big guy.” Tony said warily.

 

“Tony Stark.”

 

“Yes? That is me, correct.” Tony said slowly, wondering what the Winter Soldier is getting at. “Wait, unless that’s the name of your target, in which case…”

 

“Mate.”

 

“Yes, we already established the fact that you are here for your mate, whom you defected from Hydra for, congrats for that, and that you already found…”

 

Suddenly, the Winter Soldier’s particular wording choice clicked in his jumbled up brain.

 

Oh. _Oh._

 

And it was also in that moment that he finally caught a whiff of the scent coming off of the deadly assassin standing before him. It was a combination of leather, blood, smoke and gunpowder, and something unmistakable hidden underneath all that.

 

 _Mate._ His mate.

 

The mate he’d almost given up on meeting for his whole damn life.

 

“ _Oh, fuck me_.” Tony breathed out, eyes widening in shock, his voice just barely above a whisper

 

The next thing he knew, he went sailing over the back of his couch, having not at all seen how the Winter Soldier was able to move that fast, landing with a soft “ommph” as his fall was cushioned by strong arms and his whole body was covered from head to toe by all 6’2’’ of the Winter Soldier.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

“What the hell?” Tony spluttered. “I did _not_ mean that literally, you know. I was just, ommph!” The Winter Soldier pushed him back down when he tried to sit up on the couch, and meanwhile, he himself was half kneeling, in a standard sniper position as he propped his massive rifle, that he seemed to have pulled out of thin air, on the back of the couch.

 

Light suddenly flooded the room and a shot ran out.

 

“Fuck!” He batted a metallic hand away and peeked over the top of the couch, and yup, there are all his Avenger buddies, still in their pajamas, apart from Nat, who looked perfectly composed at ass-o-clock in the dead of night. The bullet lodged itself in the wall behind Steve’s head, who was now crouched close to the ground. Thank fuck for super soldier reflexes.

 

Nat had her Widow Bites out and loaded, Clint had his arrows drawn, Steve had a vase and a remote control in each hand, which Tony assumed he will be using as projectiles, and Bruce is just loitering in the background and looking a little green. Thor is still on Asgard, but otherwise they have a full house party here.

 

“Stop it!” He smacked the Winter Soldier’s hand, which was still trying to push his head down, hissing a little from the pain of flesh on metal, but it got him the attention he needed. In fact, he got the attention of everybody in the room, who were all staring at him a little dumbfounded, as if seeing him for the first time.

 

“Well, this is awkward.” Tony looked around a little blearily, his mind still a bit muffled after his tumble over the couch.

 

It felt like the understatement of the year, but at least nobody seemed to be in a hurry to kill anybody now.

 

“Right, introductions are in order.” Tony announced into the tense silence of the room. When in doubt, bombard people with a million watt smile. “Winter Soldier, these are my Avenger buddies who I hang out with everyday, so I’d appreciate it if you don’t shoot them. Avengers, Winter Soldier, who came here to look for his mate, and found him. Because it’s me. So. Please don’t knock his head off either.”

 

Silence followed.

 

“Tony, what the hell is going on?” Steve finally said after the somewhat stunned silence, ever the team leader even in a ratty T-shirt, pants and a serious case of bed head. _And did Captain America just swear?!_ Right, not the point.

 

“I just said, Winter here came looking for his mate, which happens to be me. So we are good. Are we good?” This he directed at the Winter Soldier, which he apparently nicknamed Winter for short.

 

“We are good.” Winter said stiffly, still not taking his eyes off the Avengers.

 

“See, all sorted, just a misunderstanding. Now, if everybody could just lower their weapons.”

 

“Alright.” Steve agreed, surprisingly amiable. “Come over here Tony, and then we can talk this out.”

 

Which was totally the wrong thing to say, because Winter laid his metal hand on the back of Tony’s neck and actually _growled_. Everybody tensed right back up, eying the hand warily, worried that it could easily snap Tony’s neck any second.

 

“Oh for Tesla’s sake!” Tony shouted in exasperation. Hell, he just really wanted to take a nap right now and the hand on his nape combined with his mate’s scent just sent shivers down his spine.

 

In that moment, he came up with a plan, where everybody could get what they want. It’s a brilliant plan, because he’s a genius. “Look, here’s what we will do. Winter here doesn’t want to be separated from me, you guys want to make sure I’ll be okay, and I just want to sleep. So, let’s move this party to the Hulk room. Sorry Bruce.”

 

Bruce just shook his head. “Tony, that’s not...”

 

“Nope, my tower, my rules. We are going to do exactly as I say.”

 

And they did. Mainly because they can’t come up with a better alternative.

 

As soon as the Hulk room door closed behind them, Tony dragged Winter to the massive bed that even the Hulk can comfortably lie on if he wanted, pushed him into a lying position, and promptly fell asleep on top of him. It’s not his fault that his mate is like the perfect body pillow and a human furnace combined.

 

//////////

 

Tony purred with contentment as deft fingers scratched at his scalp and gently tugged at his hair. He felt like he was floating on a sea of warmth and cuddles and it was overall amazing.

 

Until it suddenly wasn’t, when a few of his hair were tugged directly out of their roots, making him yelp in pain. He looked up, and stared into startled grey-blue eyes. It took him a moment to recall the events of the previous night, and realize the fact that he’s currently using the Winter Soldier as a cuddle pillow. His face heated a little but he can’t be bothered to move away because of how warm and comfortable he felt.

 

His eyes shifted to the hand that had caused him to wake up in such a pleasant/unpleasant way, and saw a few strands of hair stuck in the crevice between two metal plates.

 

“You can use the other hand, you know.” He told Winter, who was still staring at him with a bit of a deer-in-headlights look.

 

Winter brought his other hand up. “Blood.” He said, seeming a little crestfallen.

 

Indeed, there was dried blood under his fingernails and who knows what else. Now that Tony had the time and energy to notice, his whole leather get up was covered in blood stains. Tony wrinkled his nose. “You are in desperate need of a shower, babe.”

 

And with that, he reluctantly got off of his ridiculously cuddly mate and shoved his equally reluctant mate into the shower.

 

It felt like no time at all when he felt slightly wet fingers drag through his fluffy curls, startling him out of his reverie as he stood by the bed wondering how to rearrange the massive sheet on the equally massive bed so they don’t have to sleep in the same spot as last night, and other logistics such as food and change of clothes. He turned around with a smile on his lips and immediately froze on the spot.

 

He hadn’t even paid attention to the fact that Winter had had his mask on the whole time until he took it off, because his mate is absolutely gorgeous. His features were surprisingly softened without the severity of the almost muzzle like mask, his jawline rounded with a scruffy days-old stubble that gave him an almost roguish charm, which Tony can already see would make girls and boys alike blush, if it were clean shaven and decorated with a devil-may-care smirk. It drew his eyes to those plump and entirely too kissable lips, just parted a little to show a hint of teeth and tongue.

 

Water droplets curled its way down strands of chocolate brown hair, trailing over sculpted pecs. _And that arm_. Tony could literally wax poetry all day about his mate’s arm. Both of them, actually. As his gaze went further downwards, he finally realized a crucial detailed that he’d missed earlier, when confronted with so much glorious skin that he was completely blindsided.

 

His absolutely gorgeous mate is not wearing any clothes. Not even a fucking towel.

 

Tony felt his mouth go dry. He jerked his eyes upwards and met those stormy greys, which were looking at him with an almost tender expression, seemingly full of a child-like wonder as those fingers played tentatively with his hair, as if not knowing whether such an action would be allowed when the other party was no longer asleep.

 

The moment was then completely shattered by Steve dashing in through the door with exuberant shouts of “Bucky??? Bucky!!!”

 

And before Tony can say a word, two muscular, gorgeous super soldiers are rolling around on the ground, kicking and grappling, and one of them happens to be his naked mate.

 

He let out a wolf whistle.

 

Come on, who can blame him. It’s not a sight you get to see every day now, is it?

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, just to clarify the mate situation, it's something like soulmates identified by scent. I originally was planning on writing A/B/O, but didn't feel like writing A/B/O dynamics, so just sort of glossed things over.

 

 

Tony eventually got the full explanation out of Steve after separating the basically brawling super soldiers, more like prying Winter’s metal fingers out of the choke-hold he had on Steve. It turned out that Winter was not only Tony’s soulmate, but just also happened to be Captain America’s best friend and almost platonic soulmate since they grew up together. Despite Steve literally staring longing at him, from the moment Winter took off the mask probably, turning his lethal puppy eyes on full, Winter did not seem the least bit impressed with the tall blonde man, whom he can’t easily fight off, intruding the sanctuary that should belong to only him and his mate.

 

Tony admitted to himself that he would have been just a little bit insecure of the epic bromance between Captain America and his childhood friend that had survived through the decades, if not for Winter literally staring daggers at Steve the moment he showed his face, and growl whenever he got a little too close for comfort. He knew that probably made him an absolutely awful person, so he tried to show Steve some support. He literally sat on Winter’s lap, wrapping himself like an octopus around his mate on the bed whenever Steve came in for his now routine bedtime story, where he would sit next to the bed, recounting some anecdotes from their younger years, stories from the war, or just generally 40s’ stuff, trying to get a reaction out of his best friend or jolt some memories into place.

 

Tony didn’t miss how Winter would stiffen whenever Steve addressed him as Bucky. He didn’t comment on it though, because it was between Steve and him, although he did ask, not exactly as a favor to Steve, but more like respecting Winter’s choice, rather than forcing something on him.

 

“Do you want me to call you Bucky? Or James? Barnes?”

 

“Winter.” Winter had snuffled into his neck grumpily, and that had been that.

 

“Alright Snowflake, just tell me when you change your mind at any point then.”

 

//////////

 

Tony never thought that one day he would enjoy the domesticity of cuddling on the bed with his mate as he was wooed by brilliant stories, albeit murder stories, but he loved that feeling of contentment and belonging, and he loved listening to Winter’s voice.

 

Winter was scarce with his words, almost as if he was re-learning the language, but Tony absolutely treasured all their little conversations, be they serious or hilariously adorable, or sometimes both.

 

“So, how come you defected from Hydra for me? I’m not complaining at all by the way, and absolutely love your courting gift. It’s just that we didn’t even know each other at that point.”

 

"Top priority mission.” Winter replied seriously.

 

“Oookay? Care to elaborate?” Tony added once it seemed like Winter wasn’t about to say anything more on the topic, his mind spinning on conjured up scenarios, wondering what the hell Hydra planned for him and how it all backfired spectacularly.

 

“Mission objective: Protect mate at all costs. Trigger: Mate scent.”

 

Tony’s eyebrows shot up. That…actually sounds suspiciously like Hydra just happened to be collateral damage.

 

Obviously Hydra couldn’t have been the ones that set that mission, so Winter must have set it himself. He wondered when the Winter Soldier could have possibly gotten close enough even for a sniff, maybe it was the Maria Stark Foundation Gala last year?

 

“I got promoted real fast, huh? Didn’t Hydra have some sort of failsafe for this kind of situation?”

 

Winter appeared almost a little smug when he looked at Tony and said the next bit. “At all costs. Primary override status effective."

 

Tony laughed outright.

 

His mate might not be very vocal or social at this point, but he’s smart as a whip. Served those Hydra bastards right.

 

"Tony say anything, Winter obey." Winter then added somewhat solemnly.

 

"Aww, you say the sweetest things." Tony batted his eyelashes at Winter playfully, although on the inside he was just melting a little from the unabashed earnestness of his mate.

 

Winter frowned, as if sensing that Tony was teasing him, doubting his sincerity. Then out of nowhere, he said. "Sugar."

 

Tony blinked, not quite sure what he just heard. His eyes were trained on Winter, who was looking at him intently. And yup, it was still more or less his resting murder face.

 

Winter frowned some more, his expression just as murderously intent when next he said, "Sweet heart. Cupcake. Sugar plum. Honey. Pudding pop."

 

There was absolute silence, for a blink, and two, and Tony burst out laughing.

 

"Oh my god, that was absolutely beautiful. Cap, I'm keeping this one forever. You are never getting him back!"

 

Tony was still laughing, almost in tears as he crouched next to the table to holding himself up from laughing so hard that he got stomach cramps, when he looked up and realized that Winter was downright pouting by now, though to anyone else he probably looked like he was ready to commit genocide. He wheezed a little as he tried to reign in his laughter, not wanting to hurt Winter’s feelings, but seriously, can his mate get any more adorable?

 

“Right, sorry. Come ‘ere. You definitely deserve a hug for that, Sugar plum.” Tony held his arms wide open in invitation, and Winter shuffled over, now with confusion and hesitance written all over him, and Tony took that last step to envelope the taller man in a hug, a sigh of contentment replacing his chuckles as he breathed in deep, nose buried in the crook of his mate’s neck.

 

Eventually, Winter relaxed into the embrace and hugged back.

 

//////////

 

Having lived as one of the most eligible bachelors since he was probably 16, people would think that he would have been courted by an endless stream of suitors due to his name, his wealth and his genius. And they wouldn’t be completely wrong, as there were always stacks of courting gifts from the rich and powerful, waiting to snatch up the Stark heir. But despite that, none of those supposed suitors ever actually _courted_ him. Sure, there were plenty of lavish gifts and dazzling parties, but it has only ever been a business transaction. Despite growing up like that and knowing that Howard would not have had a doubt about selling him to the highest bidder before he reached 25, he had always believed with a surprising naivety and romanticism, probably courtesy of Jarvis, that he would be able to find his soulmate one day, or that his mate would find him.

 

And now that his mate actually did find him, albeit in a much less romantic setting and a bit later in life than he imagined, he found that he didn’t mind in the least. In fact, he was absolutely overjoyed to find that his mate was actually courting him, although in a rather untraditional way.

 

Looking at Winter, you wouldn’t pin him as the romantic kind, and he isn’t, but he is totally getting so many points for trying.

 

So, what courting gift would an infamous assassin give his mate? Well, assassinations, of course.

 

And no, he didn’t mean it in the way that Winter would kill off anyone who so much as look at Tony funny, although he did actually offer, no, he meant it in the way that Winter was totally showing off his Hydra kills, almost like a cat that would gift their beloved owner with dead mice.

 

At first, he hadn’t even realized that Winter was courting him, as they were going through the files on Hydra agents that Winter had recently “eliminated”, especially the top caliber ones that had hidden so deep within SHIELD that it would probably have taken dumping every SHIELD secret on the internet to unveil.

 

Until Tony realized that every one of the Hydra agents that Winter singled out to go into detail were the ones that had either directly caused Tony pain in some way, like having a hand in the Obadiah affair, or indirectly, like working with villains that had caused trouble for the Avengers, particularly in battles where Tony was injured. It was a bit chilling hearing his mate talk about murders and assassinations in such a matter-of-fact tone, but it was also strangely sweet considering that Winter had paid such close attention to Tony and was so protective of him.

 

It was especially sweet when Tony found that slowly, while Winter was reciting all the murders and overthrowing of evil organizations he performed for Tony’s sake, their relative positions had moved from sitting across the desk like they were discussing business, to sitting on the edge of the bed, and now to Tony basically sitting in Winter’s lap with a metal arm securely wrapped around his waist, as the blood-and-flesh hand gestured and manipulated holograms.

 

Winter would snuggle discreetly into the hair at the nape of his neck whenever he thought Tony was sufficiently distracted, and Tony swore he could feel Winter’s satisfied smile when those slightly chapped lips lightly brushed across his skin.

 

It was unbearably endearing.

 

Overall, life felt absolutely _perfect_. And it scared the living shit out of him.

 

Because he’d learned the hard way that nothing is ever perfect.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

“Come _on_ , Nat. Winter’s ready, you know he is. Hell, for some reason you even trusted him before you get to observe him all up close these few weeks. I don’t see what the problem is.” Tony huffed and crossed his arms, stubbornly refusing to back down.

 

“You know what the problem is, Tony.” Nat was still her completely unperturbed self, though her tone softened a little when she added, “We can turn off the audio if you need to have that conversation in private.”

 

Tony knew that Nat was right on this, like she always was, but he still didn’t like it one bit. “Swear on Captain America’s honor?” He totally didn’t pout when he said that.

 

“Yes, Tony, I swear on Steve’s honor.” Nat replied, sighing a little but indulging his whim, since she could probably lip read everything anyway. She then left discretely after that, before Winter came out of his bath.

 

Tony flopped back down on the massive bed, the breath leaving his body in a whoosh. He knew what Nat didn’t say. “ _We can’t trust him if he refused to provide any information on what he did before he decided to defect from Hydra._ ” And he knew that Nat’s right, about how suspicious it was that in all the files that Winter had provided them both before and after Hydra’s downfall, there wasn’t a single file on the Winter Soldier, not even about his time in the Red Room, which Nat has firsthand information on. He wants to trust Winter, he does trust him, it’s just…

 

Wanting to snuffle his circling thoughts, he burrowed himself into the blanket fortress that Winter totally built around where they were sleeping these past couple weeks.

 

Although it felt way longer than that now. It felt like forever.

 

Hands down, these few weeks were the happiest he could remember ever being for his whole life. And that? That scared him way more than Doombots and aliens.

 

Tony knew that from all the romantic bullshit he’d been told about soulmates that they were supposed to be perfect for you, and he couldn’t have asked for a more perfect mate than Winter, although he had started to occasionally refer to him by Bucky or James in his head for a while now.

 

Winter had been gradually speaking more fluently over the past couple weeks, though it’s a bit of a jumble of different speech patterns, sometimes like Tony, sometimes like Jarvis, but more often than not Brooklyn like Steve.

 

At first, Winter would only speak when spoken to, and even then answer in a very militant minimalist pattern that Tony was kind of tempted to call Rhodey in as a translator, though he refrained from telling Rhodey at all that he had just found his mate, who happens to be a master assassin, and is currently being locked together with him in the Hulk room. Yup, he can see how well that conversation would go. He got lucky enough that Pepper was busy on the west coast.

 

However, over time, once they started going over what happened with Hydra from Winter’s side, he slowly became more and more talkative, describing and explaining his carefully planned assassinations in slightly disturbing detail. Tony was really glad that the Winter Soldier is now on their side, or they would have been so doomed. It was especially amusing when onetime Winter went on a slight rant about certain superiors that had once pissed him off with their sheer stupidity, and how he retaliated by drinking all of their milk in the fridge. Directly from the carton. It was good to know that his mate had so much spite and personality in him despite being obviously heavily brainwashed.

 

Not surprisingly, Winter’s relationship with Steve also got quite a bit better, after Steve took a page from Natasha’s books and learnt to subtly introduce topics of their past during conversations of tactics and weapons, since the topic seemed to be a personal favorite of Winter’s. Winter also seemed to be gaining some of his memories back, whether consciously or sub-consciously, and he almost made Steve burst into tears when he once called him “Stevie”. He actually started to actively speak to people who aren’t Tony, though he still reacted badly to people intruding on their sanctuary when he wasn’t with his mate. Steve kind of learnt that the hard way.

 

What Tony totally adore about Winter was how absolutely tech savvy he was. Considering his previous experience with another ninety-years-old supersoldier relic, he was totally caught by surprise when he realized how up-to-date Winter was with all the new gizmos. And he wasn’t sure whether he was more turned on by the fact that Winter could operate and take apart the newest Starkphone design like a pro, or that he could put it back together along with a tracking chip, a bomb and an acid capsule without even Tony being able to detect anything wrong without intensive scans.

 

What made him absolutely fall in love, however, was how Winter interacted with his bots. Even though all the Avengers now know how Tony treats his bots like his children, they just filed it away as another genius billionaire quirk. None of them truly got the point that they _are_ his children. Except Winter. From the day they met, Winter had realized exactly how serious Tony was when he said not to shoot at his baby. It was totally adorable when Winter allowed DUM-E to pet his cybernetic arm because DUM-E had developed a massive crush. It was even more adorable when Tony reviewed the footage of their first night in the Hulk room later and found that Winter even apologized to JARVIS for shooting at the speakers. He totally dig that.

 

Winter…genuinely cares about him. And for someone like Tony, that alone is worth more than anything.

 

 

//////////

 

 

Similar to his first morning in the Hulk room, he woke up from gentle fingers coaxing through his hair, making his whole body relax and melt into the bed.

 

He sighed a little when the fingers moved away, and slowly blinked open his eyes, to Winter gazing down at him with that sniper’s intensity that always made his body tingle, although his face was carefully blank, hiding his expression in a way that he had never done before in front of Tony. Alarm bells rang in his mind and he was instantly awake and alert.

 

“She talked to you, didn’t she.” It wasn’t a question, nor was it an accusation. To him, it sounded more like defeat, and quiet resignation. Tony didn’t like that tone, not one bit.

 

“What do you…” Tony opened his mouth to automatically deflect, voice still a little croaky from just waking up, though he trailed off at the self-deprecating smirk adorning Winter’s mouth. In that moment, he was so James Bucky Barnes that Tony lost his line of thought and could only stare.

 

In the blink of an eye, that imagery disappeared as if it never existed, and an unreadable mask was put back on. The change happened so fast that it left Tony reeling, and for the first time ever, he was seeing the real Winter Soldier. Not the Winter that he had grown to love and depend on, nor the James Bucky Barnes that he was just getting to know. It left him deeply unsettled,

 

“What are you saying?”

 

“I’m saying that there’s something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you at the very beginning.” Winter took a deep breath, almost as if bracing himself for impact, his mask slipping just a little. Then in Tony’s growing confusion and apprehension, he made a series of lightning fast taps on his bionic arm and a small hidden section near the joint between arm and shoulder opened up, revealing a small compartment, just large enough to hide a flash drive. Tony’s eyes widened, intrigued by tech despite the growing nausea of dread settling in the pit of his stomach.

 

“This contains all the files I have on the Winter Soldier project. I…there’s…” Here Winter faltered, the mask he had on finally slipping enough, just for a second, for Tony to see the fear behind it. Then Winter composed himself, “I suggest that you have someone you trust with you when you read through the files.”

 

He placed the disk in Tony’s hand, fingers barely brushing his palm before they jerked away and curled into a fist. Winter had turned away, but Tony still caught the self-loathing that he exuded. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one hiding behind the flimsy veneer of “everything-is-fine” for the past few weeks.

 

In that moment, staring at the inconspicuous piece of tech in his hand, all of Tony’s fear and insecurities and issues that he didn’t even know existed bubbled to the surface. He knew his face must have drained of color and that it alarmed Winter, but he held out a hand to stop Winter from speaking.

 

“I’m a big boy, heck, I’m Iron Man, I can take it, you know.” He tilted his chin up and stared down Winter defiantly. “I know that you were definitely brainwashed by those bastards and that they had you completely under their thumbs. Hydra was the one who pulled the triggers no matter what you did, so I’m telling you, everything you are hiding now, it’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could say or did that would drive me away!”

 

His voice grew steadily to a shout, almost as if to compensate for the growing unsureness of his own words, and he drew in a sharp breath, having not paused during his outburst.

 

Slowly, his heart sank as Winter didn’t speak up, neither confirming nor denying anything he said, posture and expression not shifting at all, and he knew what that meant, because he himself was well versed in the art of hiding pain. He stared desperately into those perfectly emotionless stormy greys, willing, almost begging for Winter to react, just a little, giving some indication to prove him right.

 

Although he knew the truth before Winter even opened his mouth, and spoke the words that finally shattered all of his illusions.

 

“December 16th, 1991...”

 

Tony felt the world was falling apart in front of his eyes. It was like Afghanistan and Obadiah all over again.

 

He didn’t hear anything else after Winter’s expressionless voice intoned ‘collateral damage acceptable’, because he knew exactly what that coldly impassive phrasing meant. He couldn’t stop the influx of long buried memories and pain, stop himself from seeing Maria’s deceptively peaceful figure lying on that cold flat slab, and remembering how much resentment he developed for his alcoholic father for taking all that away from him, along with so much else. But now that he knew the truth…

 

He should have known better, he _did_ know better, but he still wasn’t at all prepared when his world was plunged back into the waters.

 

“Tony. I killed your parents.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, and the second part of this chapter took absolutely forever to write and I've given up on getting it just right...
> 
> So, my answer to the inch-of-milk that totally irked me in TWS…aaannnnddd here comes the angst. I totally tried but it still turned out way more angsty than I intended, since this was supposed to be a fluffy crack fic. Anyways, I always thought the “You killed my parents” thing would be a really big deal between Bucky/Tony relationships, because forgiveness and guilt don’t work at all rationally. Since I decided not to gloss it over in this fic, which I probably should have done, things are gonna get a bit angsty…


End file.
